Sen. Morales speaks on legislative session

New Mexico state Sen. Howie Morales is heading into the 2015 legislative session focused on the areas he has throughout his political career: education, health care and the budget.

Morales is a member of the Legislative Finance Committee, tasked with developing the budget for the Legislature each year. In 2015, Morales and the committee are looking at the lowest prices in one of New Mexico’s key economic footholds for some time.

“We’re very reliant on the oil and gas industries,’ he said, “and barrels have dropped to $50 or below $50 right now.’

This drop has changed the entire landscape of the state’s fiscal year.

“In August, we were looking to have about 288 million new dollars in surplus,’ he said. That was before the steepest decline in oil prices. “For every one dollar of change up or down, its about $7.5 million impact to the state budget. So, we don’t have $228 million to work with, we maybe have $144 million. In fact, I’m anticipating even lower.’

Morales said that will make it hard for the Legislature to find money for employee raises or appropriations like the health council.

Out of the 22 bills Morales is already planning to introduce during the2015 session, eight of them concern education — something that Morales speaks about frequently.

Morales told the Daily Press 43 percent of the state budget goes toward funding public education, but said education should not include just K-12, but early childhood, college and adult basic education as well.

Morales added he also believes penalizing schools and teachers for not meeting a certain quota of children taking a standardized test is wrong — that’s why he is bringing the School Grade and Teacher Evaluation Penalty Removal for Opting Out Amendments to the legislative floor this spring.

He said schools and teachers have to have 95 percent of their students take all the standardized tests, and if it’s even 1 percent below that — for example, Hurley Elementary had 94 percent of its students take the standardized test last year — a teacher’s evaluation and school grade is significantly impacted.

Morales said if Hurley Elementary had had 95 percent of its students in attendance for the standardized test, it would have received one grade higher this past year — a C instead of a D.

This can happen because parents pull their students out of school from standardized testing because of stress

MORALES Page 11

From Page 1

or family reasons, he added.

“We shouldn’t penalize the educator for the parents opting out because they feel it’s best for their child,’ Morales said.

New teacher evaluations, on the other hand, did not even get passed through the legislative floor in the last session, he added — which has caused a lot of controversy.

This year, however, he believes Secretary-Designate for the Public Education Department Hanna Skandera will be confirmed by the Senate. However, he said he would vote “no’ on Skandera’s confirmation because she implemented the new evaluations by rule, bypassing the legislative process.

Chief among the health carerelated legislation Morales is carrying into the 2015 session is the Health Security Act, which would allow New Mexico to establish its own plan for health care reform while still benefiting from subsidies and incentives present in the federal Affordable Care Act.

Morales said that New Mexico has been considering its own health care reform since well before the ACA came into being at the federal level. This bill would give New Mexico the opportunity to continue more on its own path despite the sweeping overhaul of U.S. health care in the ACA, or “Obamacare.’

“The Health Security Act allows us to set up our own co-op, so to speak,’ Morales said. “With that, my focus is to make sure in that reform that this transformation takes place with the patient at the center. This makes it so not as many dollars are spent on the overhead, the administrative side of that, but that those dollars will be spent for care. That’s what this allows to be done.’

Morales said that the HSA is an out for those who disagree about the ACA.

“We know that with the ACA there are people who agree with it and others who have some heartburn about it. This gives us an opportunity in New Mexico to take it a step further from the exchange and allows us to make our own plan. By 2017, states are able to get away with innovation and I believe New Mexico can be the forerunner in that innovation.’

For one, the bill would give the state more flexibility than the ACA does in regard to cost containment of health care.

Morales said he has been working on the HSA for years and has based it on the many conversations he has had withphysicians and the frustrations they have with reimbursements and other aspects of the ACA. He hopes that, if passed, it will help with the physician and practitioner shortage in New Mexico.

In the several years Morales has spent developing the HSA, he said it has never made it onto the Senate floor. One reason, he believes, is the great strength of the insurance industry. This year, though, that industry won’t be the only thing in its way.

While Morales is hopeful, between this year’s shift to a Republican majority in the House and Gov. Susana Martinez’s re-election, he does not predict that the Health Security Act will pass into law. Still, he said, “it’s one step at a time.’

Morales is also looking out for the Grant County Community Health Council and other health councils like it around the state.

Senate Bill 79, “ID and Address Local and Tribal Health Needs,’ calls for a recurring appropriation that will provide funding for health councils statewide in dire need after the Department of Health opted to defund them in 2005.

“We have been lucky here,’ Morales said. “The Grant County Health Council and employees have really been aggressive, going after grants and money when the state wasn’t able to find the money and pulled back on the funding side of it. Plus Gila Regional has been really supportive in helping out with some of the funding.’

Not so with every council. “Others around the state didn’t survive, but they still have the need. This appropriation’s goal is to find some funding and assist health councils because they do have a lot of the benefit to the health and overall wellbeing of New Mexicans.’

In the House of Representatives, Morales is joined by Rep. Don Tripp (R) of District 49 with HB 99, bearing the same title and goals.

This isn’t the first time Morales has tried to find money for health councils, though. “We actually tried to put some money for this into the budget last session which was vetoed out,’ he said. “Hopefully that isn’t the case this year.’

According to Grant County Community Health Council Director Chris DeBolt, SB 79 would provide $900,000 — about $25,000 apiece — to health councils in the state.

This goal and all others, though, come down to money, with the Legislature as with anyone. And this year, like every year, there is not enough to go around.